Every year the Yahoo Papermaking Group holds a Swatch Swap, which is an international exchange of handmade paper samples with recipes of how each unique paper was made.
This year, a fellow Louisiana-located papermaker Megan Singleton has hosted the Swap. I had the pleasure of participating for the first time and giving a helping hand to make the book cover paper. Who am I? Click here for my artist website.
Keep scrolling for photographs & details on how the handmade paper book covers were made.
Title Page.
Just one spread with paper samples…with my small contribution of paper made from cast-iron plant and linen rag. Cast-iron plant is a popular ornamental plant in the South, and the university just happened to be chopping it down and tossing it away. The linen rag is from Steven’s Linen in Dudley, Mass., where you can buy linen calendar towel misprints by the pound.
The sheets spread out.
Megan is pulling a base sheet of Black Arch Shred Half Stuff paper pulp with a mold and deckle from a vat. The cotton pulp was beaten for 2 hrs in a David Reina paper beater.
Couching (papermaking jargon for pressing/transferring) the wet sheet from the mold onto absorbent felts.
The second vat had blue pigmented cotton pulp.
After pulling a thin wet sheet, we used a hose (on jet or shower setting) to make watermarks down the middle, a reductive pulp painting method. The pressure of the water forces the pulp aside, leaving thin or open areas. Variable editions are great!
Couching the blue layer of pulp onto the base sheet.
The third and last layer was white cotton rag, also sprayed with water.
After this, the wet sheets were pressed and dried flat in stack dryers.
I am curious to know if any of these specialty papers are used by watercolourists and printmakers?
MARY! Thank you so much for pinning and posting the swap book on yahoo group. It looks beautiful! Job very well done!!! Craft Artist (Joyce)
I’m sure plenty do; there are many great handmade paper sources, such as Carriage House Paper and Twinrocker. I am one of many printmakers/papermakers who make their own paper and incorporate it into their work.
Thank you for the names of these suppliers. I enjoy these postings of yours and especially seeing you detail the process with photos. It is really quite intriguing.
Wonderful post! Thank you for sharing the behind the scenes action! Beautiful!
I’ve participated in the Swatch Swap many times, but not this year. My loss, for sure. Lovely covers!
This is wonderful…i think you have given this project NEW LIFE!
Great photos showing the process of making the lovely covers. As a participant, I appreciate the effort of taking the project that one extra step.
Thank-you all for your kind words! I had fun helping out Megan with the covers, and am happy to share the process.
[...] February 4, 2012May Babcock (Papermaking Helper) published this great post about the process of making the covers for the swatch swap book. The cover is so beautiful – [...]
May, thank you so much for sharing the process of making the covers. The whole book is so beautiful. I appreciate all the hard work that you & Megan put into the swap. Thanks again!
[...] Papermaking and Printmaking are two mediums which we are both addicted to, and try to bring closer together. What better way than to print on freshly made paper sheets? Let me clarify: the paper has never been dried, only pressed after forming sheets by hand from wet paper pulp (see this post). [...]